At present, there are a growing number of fields for virtual reality (“VR”) systems and augmented reality (“AR”) systems that allow a user to visualize virtual environments or augmented images that are combined with the real-world physical environment to create a mixed reality environment. These fields include, for example, scientific visualization, medicine and military training, engineering design and prototyping, tele-manipulation and tele-presence, and personal entertainment systems.
VR systems allow a user to visualize computer generated images in a virtual environment. Unlike AR systems, VR headsets usually have opaque displays where computer-generated images, objects, or virtual scenes are displayed on the opaque displays while concurrently not allowing visualization of the outside real-world physical environment.
Conversely, AR systems usually have transparent displays that allow visualization of the outside real-world physical environment while concurrently displaying computer-generated holographic, e.g. augmented images. In other words, an AR headset includes a transparent display that allows a user to see through the transparent display to the outside real-world physical environment while simultaneously seeing computer-generated images on the transparent display, which are combined with a view of the real-world physical environment to form a combined visual environment, e.g. augmented images, in the field of view of the user. The combined visual environment includes a view of both the real-world physical environment and the holographic or augmented images. An example of an AR headset is a Near-Eye-Display (“NED”) system that superimposes computer-generated images (“CG images”) over a user's view of a real-world environment.
One example of a CG image that may be presented to a user of a NED system is a user interface (“UI”), such as a curved UI. However, users of AR and VR systems often move with respect to the UI. If a user moves within the environment, but the UI remains in its original position, then the user might have difficulty viewing or interacting with UI and, in some scenarios, may not be able to view or interact with the UI. In particular, a curved UI works best when the user is at the center of the curve of the UI.
One conventional solution to the problem described above is to directly tether the UI to the user's position so that the UI moves as the user moves. This approach, however, results in frequent movement of the UI, which can make the UI difficult for the user to interact with and might cause the user discomfort, e.g. virtual reality sickness similar to motion sickness. A frequently moving UI can result in inaccurate and inadvertent user input leading to unnecessary and ineffective usage of computer resources, such as processor cycles, memory and battery, as well as user frustration.